Breaking: HUGE Explosion in Beirut

Breaking now...an enormous explosion was reported in Beirut Lebanon.
The explosion is so large...it looks like a mushroom cloud above the city.

A huge explosion rocked the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday, shaking buildings, shattering windows and sending a huge plume of smoke into the sky, AFP correspondents said.

a large ship in the background: The blast in Beirut's port area sent a huge plume of smoke into the sky© Anwar AMRO The blast in Beirut's port area sent a huge plume of smoke into the sky
Lebanese media carried images of people trapped under rubble, some bloodied, after the massive explosion, the cause of which was not immediately known.

The loud blast in Beirut's port area was felt across large parts of the city and some districts lost electricity.

Preliminary reports by local Lebanese media said the blast may have been the result of an incident at Beirut port.

"Buildings are shaking," tweeted one resident, while another wrote: "An enormous, deafening explosion just engulfed Beirut. Heard it from miles away".

Online footage from a Lebanese newspaper office showed blown out windows, scattered furniture and demolished interior panelling.

www.msn.com...

a reply to: IAMTAT

Just watching it now, some good footage here:

www.rt.com...

That is a hell of explosion (actually there was 2), but the second was caught on film and it wiped out what looked like a 20/30 story building.

Someone also mentioned it may have been from a jet.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Definitely more than one plume.

That's one hell of an explosion, I'm wondering what could be the cause of this..?

a reply to: IAMTAT
I remember that happening.
I had some friends in the barracks there.
History rhymes.

Robert Ames was lost. S&F
We cannot help people
who will not help themselves.

Clearly a meth house catastrophe. Lebanon these days is too irrelevant for anything else 😁

a reply to: 0bserver1

The plume at the start could easily have been from a jet strike, the resulting explosion could be a secondary effect from it, especially if, as some have mentioned, there was a weapons depot close by.

Obviously all just speculation at the moment

a reply to: 0bserver1

Reminds me of the initial part of a mini-nuke blast.

Found this interesting.

A UN tribunal is due to issue its verdict in the trial of four suspects in the murder by car bomb of Hariri.
All four are members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, which has consistently denied any role in Hariri's death. They are being tried in absentia and the verdict is due on Friday.
The possible second explosion was reported to be at the Hariri residence in the city.

www.bbc.com...

a reply to: carewemust
The color or the smoke could maybe indicate the materials ,but yea looks like a nuke in some ways?
Speculation goes fireworks, but that will soon change to something else I guess?

originally posted by: 0bserver1

That's one hell of an explosion, I'm wondering what could be the cause of this..?

That's obviously a high explosive detonation--probably military grade. That would suggest military ordnance, either in a ship or in a dockside warehouse. That would suggest perhaps somebody clandestinely preventing munitions from getting shipped through the port to their end user, whoever that might be.

The Mideast being what it is, the initiator could be any one of several different players.

Or, it could just be an accident, but this is a conspiracy website, after all......

That was not a nuke.
The fire obviously built pressure in something that finally popped.
The color of the flames don't look like a high explosive either.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Since there were people filming the initial fire next door. I'm sure we'll see more video clips of the second explosion.

from what i been reading it was a fireworks factory www.express.co.uk... and those tend to really go boom when they go up

Lebanon's Health Minister Hamad Hasan said an explosion in central Beirut on Tuesday had caused a "very high number of injuries" and extensive damage, Lebanese LBC television channel quoted the minister as saying. Its state news agency NNA and two security sources said the blast had occurred in the port area where there are warehouses housing explosives. It was not immediately clear what caused the blast or what kind of explosives were in the warehouses.

title says fireworks factory/storage but article says explosives storage

a reply to: IAMTAT





that is a big explosion.

I was able to slow the video down. It looks like a ship went up. The initial explosion the brown cloud and then water thrown up by the shock wave, the white mist. My best guess would be ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Just heard on skynews that officials are saying there's a warehouse in the area storing fireworks but from the video thats playing, it looks like more than fireworks caused that explosion

a reply to: OutTheBox

That first one looks maybe like a fireworks warehouse but the second one looks like a huge bomb went off

a reply to: IAMTAT

can fireworks be felt from 12 miles away? I don't think so and I'm pretty sure fireworks don't knock buildings down.

originally posted by: CrazeeWorld777
a reply to: IAMTAT

can fireworks be felt from 12 miles away? I don't think so and I'm pretty sure fireworks don't knock buildings down.

Well, they ARE explosives that don't do anything entertaining until they explode. One can take off a hand, a couple can kill a human holding them, a bunch would certainly be capable of leveling something. I'd imagine with enough in one spot like a warehouse, "bomb-like" is apt.

Edit: Also, it being a port and a foreign one at that, and you have a wide variety of everything that can catch or go boom crammed into the export storage area.

Grain silos is something people keep mentioning, but no one really knows just how explosive silo dust is. Silo dust can generate MASSIVE explosions, we've had more than a few of those right here in the US. They're rare anymore, but they did used to be more common (relatively speaking) My dad farmed, but never farmed grain or feed corn, because he knew full well the spark & boom risks -- he avoided that area of farming and just stuck with many acres of veggies and small herds to cull.

Some of the boom being kicked off by igniting silo dust wouldn't be unheard of. It's happened many times before elsewhere.